Intel Core i9-12900K
The new performance king.
We have to stop short of unequivocally recommending the 12900K. There’s the very high power consumption levels, high platform cost and the requirement for a high end cooler to tame it.
If you want to build a top spec desktop PC, the 12900K is the processor to do it with. Chris Szewczyk
Specifications
Intel Core i9-12900K; LGA 1700 socket; 8 P-Cores + 8 E-Cores, 24 threads; P-core Base/Max Clock Speed 3.2/5.2 GHz, Single E-core Base/Max Clock speed 2.4/3.9 GHz; 30MB Cache; 125W Base Power, 241W Maximum Turbo Power.
Here we go folks. Say hello to the Intel Core i9-12900K, the flagship processor of the 12th Gen range. The 12900K packs in eight performance cores and eight efficient cores for a total of 24 threads. The P-Cores can boost up to 5.1GHz while the E-cores can boost to 3.9. The 12900K contains the maximum available 30MB of L3 cache, Intel UHD770 Graphics and support for either DDR54800 or DDR4-3200 memory, though of course in reality it supports higher memory speeds than this.
The 12900K is clearly built to deliver the best possible performance at all costs, and we’re pleased to say that it’s a fantastic performer. Its multi-threaded performance is incredible. In CPU- and platform-related benchmarks, it utterly destroys the Ryzen 5900X and, though we didn’t have a 5950X on hand for testing, it’s certainly beating that CPU too in many cases despite its thread count disadvantage. It’s not just multithreaded performance that’s increased. Single threaded performance and gaming performance has taken a big step forward too, and we think there might be a bit of performance yet to come.
We get the feeling that either general software, Windows 11 scheduling or Intel’s Thread Director tech has some room to mature. The Ghost Recon results are a case in point. The 12900K struggles to match the 11th and 12th Generation CPUs, while in Shadow of War the 12900K utterly blows them away by over 20 percent. If you want the best performing gaming CPU, the 12900K is it. That alone is a huge win for Intel. At a price of around $1,000, it’s pretty expensive, but for top tier performance it’s reasonable (relatively) compared to how flagship CPUs have been priced in the past. It will surely drop in price once the early adopter premium pricing abates.
The 12900K has a lot of things going for it, but power consumption and temperatures are not among them. Even with a 360mm AIO, we saw temperatures hitting 90 degrees, along with a stratospheric 337W system power consumption over 10 minutes of Cinebench R23 testing. Make no mistake, the 12900K is a seriously power-hungry and hot CPU. If a 360mm AIO struggles, it’s safe to say that anything less than a flagship tier air cooler will struggle to keep it from thermal throttling. These characteristics take some shine off of what is otherwise an excellent all-round CPU. Luckily, idle power consumption is lower than 11th Gen CPUs, which is definitely worthy of praise.
We have to stop short of unequivocally recommending the 12900K. There’s the very high power consumption levels, high platform cost and the requirement for a high-end cooler to tame it. There’s also stiff competition from Intel’s own very appealing 12700K and, in particular, this generations’ superstar – the 12600K. Those things aside, the Core i9-12900K is a high-performance beast and for many users, that’s really all that matters. If you’re building a high performance desktop system, other than the more application specific HEDT platforms, there’s nothing better right now., Overall, Alder Lake represents a return to form for Intel and we’re quite sure that there’s more to come as the software ecosystem matures to take maximum advantage of the hybrid architecture.